Frenzied Daddy

My friend, young raven, asked me whilst enroute to the airport, if I was gaming currently. Sadly, no. However, I am living vicariously through several gaming-related podcasts and other sundry stories. Wil Wheaton just wrapped up his story about sending his son and some friends through the beginnings to their game, and his reflective tips on DMing are also great suggestions for new parents who haven’t yet figured out their game. Or old parents who, like me, sometimes lose track that the goal of this journey is fun.

Whenever you can, say “yes.” I think my first instinct is always to say “no.” No, you can’t have another Popsicle. No, I won’t help you clean your room. No, I won’t read you another book. No, I won’t tell you a story * this topic is actually reserved for another post . What if you tried saying “yes.” What’s the worst that’ll happen, if she has another Popsicle? What are you doing rather than helping him clean his room? Can it wait? Why not read another book? Our kids hear “no,” too often, and we should practice saying “yes.”

Everything is important to the PCs (kids) It’s probably not a big deal to you if you take the blue blanket or the pink one, but she’s throwing an ever-loving fit. If it’s really not important to you; try letting them pick once in a while. With the previous one and this one, I’m not advocating “say yes every time,” kids need to learn that they don’t always get their way. But they can sometimes get their way, can’t they?

Listen to your players (kids). Are you half-listening, singing to the music or reading the recipe for the stroganoff? Focus on what they’re saying, and how they’re saying it. Treat it as important, and since they’re kind of new to the world, you may have to go the extra steps of showing that you’re listening by *gasp* making eye contact and repeating back what they’re saying. You know, “good listening” skills.

Keep it simple, even if you’re just getting started. Kids don’t really care if you arrange a huge fantastic trip, like parachuting into the zoo and enjoying the day. All they really want is simple stuff – especially if they’re infants or toddlers. How many parents have you seen with these incredibly ornate parties for their two-year-old? Ponies? Alligators? What’ll you do next year? Keep it simple

You should go take a look at his post. He’s got several more points, and the only one that I think doesn’t directly translate to parenting is “buy a DM screen.” But even that one? Yeah, the kids don’t need to know everything.

Huh. Post 999? Weird.

Fourth edition Dungeons and Dragons is coming. I’m not following it as closely as I’d like to- because I’m not playing it as much as I’d like. Since DnD was bought by Wizards of the Coast, I’ve been concerned about what they’re doing with the “franchise.”

I have some excellent memories of DnD. One of my least favorite, ok I’ll admit it, player races was the Gnome. It was really only set up for one class- my least favorite “illusionist.” Dammit when I throw a spell, it’s real, ok? Geez. Anyway, apparently I’m not the only one disillusioned with gnomes, because in the fourth edition they’re removing Gnomes from the Player Handbook and replacing it with a Tiefling. In the words of a pal, “the gnomes have been demoted from player race to wandering monster check.”

Poor guys.

Anyway, this is a (funny) (short) video that gives a little more insight as to the change. I guess the gnomes are pretty happy about it. This one called his mom! Anyway, check out the video. It’s the first one on the page.

Flash!

“Players may blunder through dialog with shocking ineptitude, forget the name of the country they are in, or get confused about which side they are on, but once it comes time to roll for initiative they all turn into Sun Tzu.”

In a world where every every idiot with a pirated version if Photoshop™ and a twisted sense of humor thinks he’s a web comic artist, it takes something special to shine above the dross. I’ve been laughing so hard at the DM of the Ring that I think everyone around me wonders what the heck I’ve been drinking. It’s the funniest thing I’ve read today. So far the quote that begins this post is my favorite.

Even the comments are hilarious; this comic focuses on DnD, but one of the comments refers, in a thread about “my dice are trying to kill me”, to a Champions (superhero) game where a player hit a villain for max damage, which knocked the villain out. Knockback bounced the villain into (one bad roll later) another player’s character whose armor did not deflect the “attack” (another bad roll) and who took more damage, and who (another bad die roll) was essentially turned to strawbelly mush after knockback of his own.

And why I hate dice

Ran our dungeons and dragons game. It was a smaller crew than usual.

Got a story up.

I’ll post some XP points shortly

Spoiled Gamers! I bet he even uses one of those computer programs for rolling dice. I tell ya, back in my day we used faux vellum and ink and liked it! Why … harrrumph. Never mind that I do a similar thing now, without the “overhead.” I scan the map, save it on my laptop, edit and use a “mask” on it.

Thanks for the Link

Finally got a writeup of last month’s game up.

And in other news, google and misspellings are the devil.

Last Saturday was our Dungeons and Dragons game. It’s been on hold for a couple of months, because of life issues. But Saturday, we gathered about the table at David’s house and rolled some dice for many hours.

It’s nice, being level 2 – we feel accomplished and less fragile.

So, we had most of us there — cept for Cameron, who was visiting relatives. We had a good session (for being on break for 6 weeks); we started by falling into a pit with a large creature. It kept swinging at us, but missing and missing- so we attacked back, and surprise! We all hit. It died, and every one of us (except for Cameron) gained enough XP to become level 5 (shazam!), and a bucket of gold!

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We had a great game on Saturday.

Unfortunately, we were missing Duncan, who plays the Sorceror Frosti. He was home sick. In fact, we wound up having a round table
discussion on how to handle missing players. Since Brookes values consistency in her game world, my solution of having the ground open up and swallow them wasn’t appreciated; even when the ground could open up and re-spew them the next session. Rather, we decided to have them zombified; they wouldn’t make decisions or offer help, but could fight / hunt / explore. They’d get half experience points for the session.

Since Frosti wasn’t there, I’ll be a little more descriptive about the game.

With Frosti gone, there was nobody to encourage us to hold on to the keys and not enter the barrow. In theory, we’re following an evil wizard, and he’s disappeared near here (the tracks go into this abandoned village and do not leave.) We’ve found some clues that point to the barrow outside of town as holding an artifact that Surtur (Evil Fire Giant God) desires; and we think the wizard is a follower of Surtur. So the rest of us found the way to open the magic door and we’ve entered.

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It’s late, but Brookes reminded me that I hadn’t posted anything about last week’s game. It went smoothly, except for Grim’s absence. He
was missed; he was able to play for a few hours, but had to return home. Grim, the game’s at your place this week, so I hope you’re home. I’m copying what I posted in the discussion section.

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